I've been needing a break from FFXIV, so I was searching for something else to play for awhile and I stumbled across Path of Exile, which is a F2P ARPG. I am only a few days into the game, but I have been quite impressed thus far. I think it is quite a significant improvement over Diablo III. Is anyone else playing this game at the moment? Interested in hearing some people's thoughts.

Its one that I cycle to. Very good game, lots and lots of variation. I had a lot of fun the last time I played it. (made a trapper was awesome). FTP is pretty nice too. I recommend it to my friends who like the ARPG stuff. Also way better than Diablo 3, it is much more in the same vein as D2 and if D2 wasn't such a cult classic id say could give it a run for the money as well.

Yeah I was a huge far of D2, but didn't really like the direction of D3...especially with the real money auction house. Honestly, the auction house in general made D3 pretty crappy. I am really enjoying PoE and how liquid the classes are with the skill tree. Very cool stuff.

Decided to check this out this weekend. So far I am impressed. It's very polished and quite entertaining. Nice level of challenge, got my but handed to me a bit before I got the swing of things but mashing along now.

Playing a shadow atm.

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An old silent pond... A frog jumps into the pond, splash! Silence again.

Meh, old thread is old by now, but I'm going to be a bit of a negative nancy say PoE didn't really enthrall me. As a game from a smaller studio, its lack of polish stands out for me. The animations are stiff, equipment looks bland, and the overall grimdark feel comes off more satirical than serious. Whatever traction it gains from the D3 haters usually seems to be more a case of disappointment in D3 than PoE being revolutionary in its own right. The customization their sphere grid boasts also isn't all that much different than D2 once synergies were added: You either built right or you suffer with a ****** character and get forced to reroll. On that end, D3 is seriously a blessing, as mindlessly releveling was rarely the fun part and usually just led to rush requests.

That out of the way, I will bump D3 a bit since I'm not seeing a recent thread about it. The 2.0 patch hit in March with the expansion soon after. The game is far improved compared to the D3 some of you folks may have ******* about. It still isn't without flaw, but I'd say it's closer to what its original launch should've been as opposed to the abomination Jay Wilson helmed. And for those who loathed the RMAH, it's gone. In fact, trading is now restricted to generally curb the black market and overall economy manipulation these games tend to facilitate. However, to get the most out of it, you will indeed need RoS. So I can see that $40 price tag being a dealbreaker for some.

There are things I like about PoE and I highly recommend it to those looking for a good F2P experience. I like their microtransaction model, and the quality of the game is great considering the price.

That said, I can't find much reason to play it over D3 at the moment. While yes PoE's skill system is more in-depth than D3's, that doesn't outweigh the level of polish on D3 for me. I prefer D3's combat. It feels better to me. I prefer D3's aesthetics. I like the character design in Diablo. I know a lot of people complain that it's WoWified or that it isn't atmospheric, but I really enjoy the presentation. At the moment, my biggest issue with D3 is back to being the story, which you only have to play through once now anyway so even that isn't a big issue. If they had provided this game experience at launch there would still have been a lot of people who would have complained that it's not Diablo 2, but it would have been much better received overall, and I'm sure there'd be a not-insignificant impact on the number of expansion sales.

D3 is like a whole new game now imo, and I was probably one of the most vocal about its flaws. Maybe not. But I didn't like it. I still have yet to get the expansion because frankly after an unimpressive Cataclysm expansion in WoW, an unimpressive Expansion in Starcraft, and the unimpressive launch of D3 I just don't think I can realistically give Blizzard anymore dollars until they show me that they can create something that is actually "good".

I still like PoE, I haven't played it in a while, but thats how ive been with all games lately.

I actually was just checking out how D3 has changed so much with the recent expansion. Looks much improved since I left. I might have to give it a look. 40$ for an expansion that has just a single act is pretty harsh though.

A lot of my original complaints about D3 have been resolved, a lot haven't. It's undeniably a much better game.

Things that are much better: No AH, better gear drops.

Things that need improvement: The PS3 desperately needs to get Loot 2.0.

Things I'm still unhappy about: Story, their approach to stats and skills*.

*This was my single biggest complaint until it became clear how central the AH was, so it's actually still a big complaint. I'm more resigned to the change now, though. I really miss the feeling of actually building and developing a character. Your gear options are so limited compared to early games, and then you have access to every skill. It's so much less fun to me.

The story wasn't a con for me before playing (because I obviously didn't know), but I'm confused by the writing. I just don't get why you'd spend so much time on Leah to then... have that not matter at all to anyone, anywhere, ever.

A lot of my original complaints about D3 have been resolved, a lot haven't. It's undeniably a much better game.

Things that are much better: No AH, better gear drops.

Things that need improvement: The PS3 desperately needs to get Loot 2.0.

Things I'm still unhappy about: Story, their approach to stats and skills*.

*This was my single biggest complaint until it became clear how central the AH was, so it's actually still a big complaint. I'm more resigned to the change now, though. I really miss the feeling of actually building and developing a character. Your gear options are so limited compared to early games, and then you have access to every skill. It's so much less fun to me.

The story wasn't a con for me before playing (because I obviously didn't know), but I'm confused by the writing. I just don't get why you'd spend so much time on Leah to then... have that not matter at all to anyone, anywhere, ever.

A lot of my original complaints about D3 have been resolved, a lot haven't. It's undeniably a much better game.

Things that are much better: No AH, better gear drops.

Things that need improvement: The PS3 desperately needs to get Loot 2.0.

Things I'm still unhappy about: Story, their approach to stats and skills*.

*This was my single biggest complaint until it became clear how central the AH was, so it's actually still a big complaint. I'm more resigned to the change now, though. I really miss the feeling of actually building and developing a character. Your gear options are so limited compared to early games, and then you have access to every skill. It's so much less fun to me.

The story wasn't a con for me before playing (because I obviously didn't know), but I'm confused by the writing. I just don't get why you'd spend so much time on Leah to then... have that not matter at all to anyone, anywhere, ever.

So the Jay Wilsonless D3 is pretty awesome. My brother bought me the expansion, and the story was actually pretty good, better is the new stuff they added Rifts/Bounties in adventure mode. I dunno if its worth buying, but I didn't have to so I am enjoying it.

I am just upset that all that gear I worked so hard* to get is useless now, my Monk is a lot weaker than I remember her being.

*By flipping items on the GAH, and of course exploiting the **** out of the Gem market last summer when it went off the rails and Gold devalued by like 1000% after Blizzard changed their RMAH Gold amounts to like 10m for 30 cents. Had a top tier Monk setup, now it is inferior =(. But I have 198M to spend on stuff so thats cool!

Well, crap like that is pretty much why the game is BoA now. It was simply far more effective to game the AH than to actually play the game.

Of current itemization, there are basically 2 glaring issues that jump out at me: 1) Mobs dropping anything feels way too rare.

Now, one of the promises of Loot 2.0 was that mobs wouldn't drop as much junk, but in turn, we'd get higher quality items. What we got was perhaps Blizz cranking drops back too far, while not making the loot itself good enough. Indeed, you are likely to find things while leveling a character to use as upgrades, but the problems arise at max level where more precise gear requirements directly affect what difficulty you can play in. And since some stuff now only drops in Torment difficulties, well, cross your fingers. It's pretty much so bad you see people instead resorting to running areas with high treasure chest populations, ignoring any and all monsters just to pop them and hope for the best. This resulted from a kneejerk reaction from Blizz to thin out chest spawns. Still doesn't change the fact that chests and select breakables seem a more likely source for loot than your average white monster.

2) Forgotten Souls are way too scarce.

This is perhaps an extension of #1, but it applies more so directly to legendary and set drops. 2 FS are needed for every legendary/set crafting attempt as well as 1 being needed for the rerolls of legendary/set equipment. Blizz implemented a "fail safe" where a player should be finding one legendary every 2 hours or so if they're actually killing things, but the problem is, a lot of legendaries you do find are going to be garbage. This puts pressure on crafting and rerolling to help players target gear they need if they also have the corresponding recipe to attempt it. However, just like finding a drop, most crafts will also be garbage.

Now, the trollish sorts will claim legendary drop rates are already too high and people shouldn't complain. Diablo is supposed be a grind, yada yada. FS, however, are not actual combat tools. Having 100 in your inventory will not let you clear T6. All they will allow is more endgame crafting attempts, which may or may not go in your favor. There are still dropped legendaries with superior and desirable bonuses, but I feel making the crafting process more casual friendly will up the game's longevity by virtue of allowing people to experiment with more builds and classes instead of sticking to one because that's all their time can manage to build.

If Blizz can tackle those, all the ******** about BoA won't hold much weight as it shifts progress from luck and more to honest effort. Allowing trade, with or without the AH, just risks inviting all the cancerous activities back that outright led to people who rarely played the game itself influencing those who do. People love to bring up the D2 economy and how it made the game better, but when I look back, I just recall dupes ruling the scene and items most legit players would never find being the only things people actually wanted to trade for. When it came to things like Perfect Gems, the only time that flew was if you seriously had an account stocked with them like some kind of chinese gold farmer. No thanks.

Class balance, of course, is another story. Demon Hunters are my bag and I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, how Cluster Arrow is pretty much the only reliable way to tackle later torments with any respect for time efficiency. When you have a skill that hits nearly 2x harder than anything else, that's just bound to happen. Some are okay with this just because they can still play the class. Some are okay with it because they like being an underdog and deliberately using other ****** skills. Meanwhile, nobody really wants to invite a DH to anything because they either die in a hit with CA build or don't do enough damage with everything else. Alas.

I'm a little confused by the critique, to be honest. Better gear dropping in higher difficulties makes sense to me. I mean, it's nice that you want to sit in Normal difficulty and farm stuff, but it would be weird game design to allow you to reach top stats that way. Your character will still progress through their new whatchamacallit system, though. So if you think you're not skilled enough to bump up the difficulty when you've capped your stats, you can still farm out some more advanced levels to help out (some of which should actually have a bigger impact, from what I can tell).

If those aren't going to be enough, well, I think you've hit the end of the road for that character. There's no more progression for you. Not because it doesn't exist, but because you've capped out what you personally have the skill to handle.

That said, balance issues are still relevant here. Skill as the determining factor is fine in a balanced game, but if the power discrepancy between builds is huge (and the best-performing builds don't actually map to realistic strategies at that difficulty level), then you're obviously hitting a roadblock that's a design limitation.

When I went through Act 1 (on PS3), all my Demon Hunter really did was use Rapid Fire, because literally everything else was a fraction of the damage. I have no clue what I would do going into higher difficulties, where I'd need to use more extensive kiting mechanisms than just dropping my trap and kiting them through it, because no other skill had damage anywhere close to Rapid Fire. Even fighting huge groups, it was better to ST them down with RF than use AoE skills.

A balance issue like that at high difficulties when you're at a point you can't just grind out some more gear would definitely suck.

Well, console version is different than PC. Maybe not by much, but comparing them fairly can be rough to do.

RF is perhaps a good example of a skill diminishing in worth as the difficulties climb, however, as mob HP scales much more sharply than our damage potential. Same goes with mob damage relative to the DH's defenses and Dex's failings as a primary stat (loldodge to STR's Armor or INT's All Resist passively). When you're forced to stand still, you make yourself vulnerable to the approach of mobs, and some can just leap/charge/teleport to you anyway. Once they are in range, you lose the benefits of things like Steady Aim, but must also take up a skill like Brooding if you do indeed want to hunker down and just keep firing away. Further investing in Armor, All Resist, Vitality/Life% also comes at the expense of offense under their new 4/2 system, which I guess is something else I'd also criticize since I believe sockets should roll independently of the 4/2 on all possible items while boots always have movement speed, as another example.

Anyway, DH's defensive failings inherently translate to other skills suffering at higher difficulties. Shuriken Cloud on the Chakram skill is literally a blade shield that floats around you. Fan of Knives is a skill that deploys a small AoE centered on yourself. The poison rune of multishot also does similar. More stationary attacks like Sentries and Spike Trap also demand a slower pace, nevermind my utter disdain for Sentry having both a Hatred cost and cooldown timer. The class simply carries an identity crisis amongst its skills that have led many to simply disregard being more well-rounded or even on the tanky/melee side because efficacy simply drops off like a rock. Of course, you'll get the tryhards claiming that's how things are supposed to be, that archers are squishy, and all that sort of RP-type justification that only matters when its convenient for an argument. Meanwhile, other classes are simply easier to gear and roll mobs more effectively at later difficulties.

Anyway, incentives for later difficulties isn't something I'm against. I'm not sure where I really gave that impression. Right now, rolling a difficulty where you can 1-2 shot mobs is generally more rewarding on the loot end due to the absurd rarity of the Torment-specific sets and legendaries. I'll certainly have a personality clash with people who want to treat the game like an MMO and demand that completing a character's build should take years. Wanting stuff handed to me is also not something I'm asking for despite that being employed as a common strawman against people who feel similarly. If it took me something like 3-5 days of gratuitous play get a good item for a slot, not exactly top rolls, I'd be okay with that. A class still has a number of equipment slots before even factoring in doing that for all the classes. Right now, though, reward is too much on the side of RNG. Like 1% 24hr NM FFXI-style RNG.

But yeah, Blizz can say things like there's an increased legendary drop% chance in Torment difficulties and inside Rifts, but a percent of a significantly tiny percent isn't really something your average player is going to notice. "RNG is RNG" might be the common mantra, but my ultimate argument was that mid-game feels more like a late-game here. Again, an MMO this is not.

I think that they need to change that to % chance to drop to % quality drop. I haven't seen a notable increase in drops from N>T but I have seen a vast difference in quality. The higher the difficulty slider, the closer to top end values you find.

I run Bounties on Normal and Rifts on T1 atm, my Monk is kinda ****, either has little DPS, or little Toughness, thanks Dex!

Monks are in a bad spot because of the false Toughness value thanks to dodge not actually being very useful for half the stuff in the game. Same with DH. (Funny, those are my 2 main classes...).

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But yeah, Blizz can say things like there's an increased legendary drop% chance in Torment difficulties and inside Rifts, but a percent of a significantly tiny percent isn't really something your average player is going to notice.

Note that the values for Rifts are incorrect with the recent changes, but everything else is pretty close. I play on T1 because I can kill things relatively quickly and I also want Torment specific legendaries .

Well, console version is different than PC. Maybe not by much, but comparing them fairly can be rough to do.

Closer to "completely impossible to do."

Digg on console doesn't get loot 2.0, doesn't get the updated paragon and difficulty systems, doesn't get the large balancing patch that came with RoS. Console users are, for all intents and purposes, playing a different game than PC users.

And on Monks, defensively they would be just fine if Blizzard would just make Dodge work on ground effects and scale similarly to Armor/All resist. It's scaling is really off, and it doesn't scale nearly as well point for point.

And on Monks, defensively they would be just fine if Blizzard would just make Dodge work on ground effects and scale similarly to Armor/All resist. It's scaling is really off, and it doesn't scale nearly as well point for point.

Yea, that would help a lot. It's just ridiculous currently. Obviously making it scale the same might be OP (since dodge avoids damage, not just reduces it), but it's clearly inferior in its current form.

Yea, that would help a lot. It's just ridiculous currently. Obviously making it scale the same might be OP (since dodge avoids damage, not just reduces it), but it's clearly inferior in its current form.

If I understand it right, it wouldn't though. It's a chance to either take full damage or no damage at all, and over a significant period of time, it ends up being x% damage reduction, where x is your dodge chance.

Though I guess that's not taking into consideration that you can stack armor and allres on top of dodge as a monk or DH, but you can't stack dodge as any of the other classes. Possible new stat affix idea? I wouldn't mind playing a dodge melee wizard.

I don't think Monk is that bad off tbh, I just get envious when Wiz, WD, DH show up and melt an entire screen in 2 seconds. STI + OWE are pretty badass defensive options if you find you are getting smacked around, and the fourth passive + unity is a nice little gift.

My build lets is pretty strong I think, I don't die very easily. Even without having native Armor or Resistance bonus I am sitting at 60% Armor reduction and 71% Resist reduction. Which I back up with 50% Damage Reduction from Epiphany and a 47K Bubble from Mantra of Healing, that I spam Liberally.

My gear isn't to great but I have a pretty balanced build, my DPS is mostly passive. Sitting at 425K Damage and 6.5M Toughness, all though toughness doesn't take into account the fact I can literally spam a 47K bubble for as long as there are people to punch in from of me.

Oh no, you're right. Monks certainly aren't in a bad place. There's just a few things here or there that could really use some attention, like build diversity. The monk suffers from this pretty badly, but so do other classes, maybe more so.

Blizzard was probably right in not changing the monk in the most recent patch.